Garlik says "Wild West" web getting worse

Online fraud up nearly 20%

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31 October 2008 12:54 GMT / By Katie Scott

The FBI have said it, internet security experts have said it, and now another voice has added to those concerned about rising online crime.

Garlik - the online fraud investigators, who have offices on both sides of the Atlantic, have released a report that claims e-crime is soaring.

It claims that incidents of online fraud in the UK have jumped nearly 20% from the figures from 2006.

Last year, it says that there were 250,000 incidents of online financial fraud.

But a total of three and a half million online crimes which was a 9% rise from 2006.

The report estimates 84,000 of these cases were of online identity fraud.

Echoing a recent FBI report, Garlik's chief executive Tom Ilube said:
"It's critical in this time of financial crisis that individuals are vigilant with their personal information, because as long as the credit crunch continues, we can expect to see a real growth in online financial fraud".

"At the moment it seems that the internet is increasingly perceived as a sort of Wild West, outside the law", the Garlik report concluded.